I'm on vacation out here in Niagara On The Lake, Ontario
And I find it difficult to just walk around without being stopped by
shapes everywhere just begging to be analyzed! And I feel this great urge to stop and
deconstruct all those shapes and make them into studies and paintings and ...
It's a problem. So! Shapes in a painting are kind of like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
But to make that a better analogy we need to tweak a few things.
So we'll represent a painting here on the right. First, each piece or shape in a painting contains just a single value.
Second, the pieces should be non-uniform.
Third, there should be lots of variety from big shapes to small. And lastly, the shapes can fit together a lot more organically or
unpredictably than the uniform nature of a jigsaw puzzle.
Those are the simple principles I think about when I'm studying shapes and I want to show you the process of one of these studies
as I paint the beautiful Riverbend Inn, where my wife and I stayed. I'll do the study in watercolor.
And here's a quick glance at how I set up my travel paint box. It's lightweight compact and tripod-free. Now,
I'm gonna do this study without a preliminary line drawing. That will force me to really think about shape. And I'll apply the
Jigsaw puzzle analogy to this painting ... but first: a quick word from my sponsor!
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All right, so here's another look at our picturesque subject.
And the first thing I want to tell you is my overall strategy when it comes to paintings like this. In the early going
I'm mostly concerned with setting the stage with big shapes. And one feature about big shapes is, well,
they're big - so you can only fit a few of them on the page.
That makes them useful for blocking out an overall composition. In this case
it's like, how much of the Riverbend Inn do I want to include here?
Now, quick tangent: see those different colors that are coming in?
I'm making sure that they still gel with the overall rooftop shape. In watercolor
it helps to do that kind of thing while the wash is still wet.
So even though I use a lot of color it's still a shape consideration first!
Now, my painting is not very readable yet, but that's by design.
I'm playing a bit of a long game here.
What I want to do with these shapes is not only use them to represent their physical counterparts in the actual scene,
I need them to serve a ... let's call it a more 'artistic purpose' as well.
And that is: the shape should also contribute to an abstract design of the picture.
I'll break down further what I mean by that in just a moment, but for now, hang on to that thought!
Here, I'm being careful to measure the negative shapes between each column. Of course with watercolor you cannot paint white;
you have to have the foresight to leave those areas untouched. That makes watercolor
unforgiving, and sometimes frustrating. But it also makes it a good medium for improving your skills with shape.
All right, let's get back to that thought about shapes contributing to an abstract design. We'll pause this painting and go on a little side trip.
All right, so we have a shape,
let's say these columns, that we want to reveal in our painting. There are many ways to do this.
We could simply draw a line around them and then fill in the right value.
Alternatively
we could put a single high-contrast shape behind the columns. And while both of those methods are totally functional,
I usually search for something a little different.
I like to think back to the jigsaw puzzle thing and make a meal of this stuff by playing with varieties of big medium small
shapes, various contrasts and uneven treatments of lost and found. I'll apply this to something as simple as a line.
In a painterly painting, lines can sometimes not jive all that well because too many lines are basically
shapes that don't have much variety.
So whenever I need something like a line,
I'll usually opt for something that has the effect of a line, but also has that intrinsic distribution of variety.
So let's replay this part of the painting and you can see what I'm thinking here. These shapes
are me trying to break up the uniformity of the bigger shapes, while still serving the subject.
That's a pretty tall order though! And I don't think I've ever made a sketch where I like all my decisions!
But it's not really about that. I don't sketch to put things in a frame. I sketch to hone my instincts.
These little shapes that are part of the gables and chimneys again are they're not just to show those things ...
but also to lend some clarity and broken contour to the rooftop shape.
Deepening my value here by adding another wash.
Sometimes with watercolor you can get the value right the first time,
while other times you want to start light let that area dry to make room for future washes,
which will make it darker. Here though,
I'm using wet into wet to let the medium mix all these colors into a single shape and value.
Windows can be a great opportunity to bring some much-needed smaller shapes into an area and
while that value is on my brush, I'll continue this lost-and-found game that I'm playing with the rooftop by putting a tree behind it.
Basically
what I'm doing here is
defining part of the rooftops contour. And just to show you where I'm at with this: these parts of the roof top shape are found ...
while these parts are lost. As to whether or not that's the correct balance -
I have no idea! One thing's for sure though
you don't need to show the viewer the entire shape in order for them to identify the shape. Our brain wants to fill in information.
We do it every second of every day in real life.
That's what makes playing with shapes and varieties and lost-and-found so appealing to me. I feel like it's true to how we experience reality
Anyway, I'm at the point in this painting that I find to be the most difficult part of the process.
That is when I have a lot of shapes down ... yet I still feel the need to add some more.
When you're sketching from life, everything is happening in the moment. I find it near impossible to have an objective
look at what you're creating as you're creating it.
It's not uncommon for me to look at one of my sketches and wish I'd stopped ten minutes sooner. The shapes
I'm putting down now, though, I think are necessary. They're adding some nice break up.
They're also helping to define the perspective of the scene. And
Keep your eye on the screen because my favorite brushstroke and the whole piece is coming up!
Right ... there! I think that one stroke gave meaning to that entire left third of the page. And
looking back at this sketch, I think I probably could have stopped right here ...
Okay, maybe after that drip. I
Didn't stop though. I'm plowing ahead.
I'm gonna put a tree behind this house which, on one hand, forces me to reveal the entirety of that last column ...
not sure I'm a fan of that ...
But I am a fan of the depth that creates. Now the house feels like it's coming forward, due to it
overlapping something behind it.
Now, that tree of course has thousands of details in it,
but I'm gonna limit myself to just a few shapes.
That will suggest its form but still allow most of the shaped play to exist in the subject in front of it.
Remember the jigsaw puzzle analogy? I don't want equal shape play throughout.
Including more of the vegetation on the other side for some counterbalance. Oh
and here's a look at how I clean my brush off.
I don't clean my brush between each mixture or anything.
If you've seen my other videos
you know all about the power of grays and how they relate to color harmony! And
maybe, the next watercolor video I make, instead of shapes, I'll focus instead on color and edges.
Those are other fundamental properties of a painting, after all. But for now, we're gonna call this sketch finished!
That was a lot of fun. Thanks everyone for watching. I'd like to quickly thank my wife, who didn't divorce me!
In fact, she filmed this painting while eight months pregnant, on an extremely hot day.
But yeah, our first child should be arriving any day now ...
so if you don't see me on YouTube the next month or so,
you'll know why! But until then, check out my other videos. I have longer lessons on my online store,
and I'm looking forward to bringing you guys more content here on YouTube. See you next time!